


Endless Mugs of Coffee

by h_nb



Series: Keaton [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Exhaustion, Fear, Panic Attacks, Possible Hallucinations, Self-Imposed, Sleep Deprivation, Sleeplessness, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27168163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h_nb/pseuds/h_nb
Summary: Whumptober Day Twenty Three
Series: Keaton [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956004
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Endless Mugs of Coffee

Keaton's eyes popped open, staring at the ceiling that was lit by the soft light of his bedside lamp. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, but he felt like his was barely breathing. He sat up, climbing out of bed before he could be grabbed--

No, no one was here, he lived alone. No one was going to come out of these shadows and grab him, twist his wrists behind his back with cables that he didn't have the strength the break free from, no oppressive arms that muscled him forward and into a room that he knew he wouldn't leave the same as when he came in.

This wasn't the first time he had woken up that night, but this time was far more consumed by panic than the last three, these thoughts crowded his mind with fears and anxieties he had already circled through and kept coming back to, and they were not giving up no matter how hard Keaton tried to keep them at bay.

Keaton looked across the room to his desk, where his monitor was dark, keyboard still softly glowing in the dark. His camera sat next to the monitor, a little scuffed up, battered from the times it had been thrown to the floor, discarded in favor of punching Keaton across the face, layering bruises upon bruises.

His jaw ached, and Keaton touched it gingerly with his fingertips, already pulling away and expecting to feel the sensitive bruising around his jaw, but instead his skin was only clammy and cold.

No longer tired, Keaton wrapped his arms around himself, looking around his dimly lit room, reassuring himself that this room was empty, there was nothing creeping in the shadows. He felt kind of stupid as he did so, like he was a kid again checking for monsters in his closet, only these evils were real and he had seen them first hand, felt the kind of damage they could do and the threats of so much worse.

But the closet was clear, and there was no space under his bed for anything to try and grab him, and Keaton felt stupid for even trying to check. Still, he couldn't shake the terror and anxiety that gripped him, expecting at any moment to be found somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.

Fear drove him to open his bedroom door and flick the light in the main room on, exhaling slowly as he looked around at the clearly empty space.

"No one is here," he muttered to himself, tightening one hand in a fist. "You're just freaking yourself out, you should- ugh." Keaton ran his other hand down the side of his face, rubbing at his eye, before bringing it back up to push back his hair. "-should go back to sleep, you're just freaking yourself out."

He turned back to his bedroom door, about to open it again, when there was a loud rattling at their front door, just a few feet away. It was persistent, a body nearly slamming against it as the handle shook at the presence of someone trying to turn it.

Keaton wasn't breathing. His body had frozen, staring dead at the door, certain that they had found him, they were going to drag his struggling body away and that this time, certainly, he wouldn't come back, for all his begging and pleading, Keaton was certain that one day his luck would run out and that day was now, so late into the night even the usual weekend crowds of parties had quieted at this hour. But someone was still out, still here at Keaton's door, trying to get in, trying to get to him.

With a trembling hand, Keaton reached out and flicked off the lights, plunging him into darkness.

The hallway of his apartment was barely lit at this hour of night, but it would be enough that Keaton would see if the door opened. In the meantime, he hoped that the darkness would be a deterrent for whoever was at the door to think that there was no one home.

Or whoever it was would ambush Keaton that much easier in the dark.

Keaton flicked the light back on, feeling stupid as he did so, but not knowing what else to do. He continued to stare at that door, for minutes that felt like they stretched on for hours.

At some point, the rattling stopped. Keaton still didn't move, legs stiff against the ground, trapped within their own mind, panic bouncing around endlessly in there but finding no way to leave. So they stayed, until the sunlight poured through their kitchen window. The new light unfroze them enough that they stumbled over to the coffee pot, numbly going through the motions until the heat of the mug around their hands slowly distracted their mind from the spiral it had been stuck on for the past several hours.

Mug clutched in hand, Keaton slowly moved toward the front door, unlocking it with a trembling hand. He flung it open, breath catching in his chest and already flinching backward in fear.

There was no one there. The hallway was empty, save for the quiet ding of the elevator down the hall closing.

Keaton shut the door, and locked it. Then he checked the lock. And re-locked it.

The day passed slowly, with every slight noise in the quiet apartment transforming into something that immediately turned Keaton's head, paranoia setting in without realizing it. Mug after mug of coffee collected on his desk, the heat and the caffeine keeping his mind off the thought he didn't want to think, though with every noise that caught his attention those thoughts immediately returned tenfold.

The moon rose with the nighttime, but Keaton didn't sleep. He couldn't, not when there was someone trying to get into his apartment, someone trying to find him. He couldn't sleep. The sun rose again. He hadn't slept. His eyelids were so heavy. He wouldn't sleep. It was impossible to stop them from sliding shut every few seconds. He wouldn't sleep until he was sure he was safe.

(Jae arrived a day later, worried after not hearing from his friend in a few days. Using the spare key, she opened the door and found Keaton passed out on the couch, an old cup of coffee on the ground. Shaking him awake, Jae was met with a terrifying combination of fear and exhaustion in Keaton's eyes, weakly gripping at his friend's arm as sleep refused to relinquish its clutches on him no matter how hard he had tried to fight it.)


End file.
